PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

danah boyd

Also known as Danah boyd

danah boyd examines the political and economic forces shaping generative AI. She studied computer science at Brown and media arts at MIT, earned an information PhD at Berkeley, joined Microsoft Research and founded Data & Society. She published It's Complicated about teenagers' social media in 2014 and Data Are Made, Not Found about democracy's data in 2026. She received MIT's Morison Prize in 2023, became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2025, and a Sloan Research Fellow in 2026. As of October 2026, she is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell.

Works
232
Citations
52,463
h-index
59
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2000–2008

    Degrees at Brown, MIT and Berkeley

    She earns a computer science AB at Brown in 2000 under Andy van Dam and an MS in media arts and sciences at MIT Media Lab in 2002 under Judith Donath. She completes a Berkeley School of Information PhD in 2008 under Peter Lyman and Mimi Ito.

  2. By 2009

    From MIT to Microsoft

    She studies identity management with Judith Donath at MIT's Sociable Media Group and builds an online community for V-Day. Her industry roles include Tribe.net, Google and Yahoo! before she joins Microsoft Research New England in 2009, where she studies young people's social media use for more than a decade.

  3. 2013

    Founding Data & Society

    She founds the Data & Society research institute in 2013.

  4. 2014

    A book about networked teens

    In February 2014, she publishes It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, drawing on more than a decade of interviews to examine teens' use of social media.

  5. 2023

    A Morison Prize

    She receives the MIT Morison Prize in Science, Technology, and Society in 2023.

  6. November 2025

    Political economy of generative AI

    She gives a Cornell talk on the political economy of generative AI in November 2025. She becomes a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2025.

  7. 2026

    A Sloan fellowship and census book

    She is selected as a Sloan Research Fellow in 2026. In 2026, she publishes Data Are Made, Not Found, a book about the sociotechnical, political and organizational practices behind making democracy's data.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor at Cornell

    As of October 2026, she is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University.

Career

  1. Since 2024Cornell UniversityGeri Gay Professor of Communication
  2. 2019–2025Georgetown University
  3. 2016–2025Data & Society Research Institute
  4. 2012–2015New York University
  5. 2010–2025Microsoft
  6. 2009–2025Microsoft Research
  7. 2008–2013Harvard University

Education

  1. 2008University of California, BerkeleyPhD
  2. 2002Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMS
  3. 2000Brown UniversityAB

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship2007 · Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication · 16,239 citations
  2. CRITICAL QUESTIONS FOR BIG DATA2012 · Information Communication & Society · 5,437 citationsWith Kate Crawford
  3. I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience2010 · New Media & Society · 4,592 citations
  4. Tweet, Tweet, Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter2010 · Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences · 2,045 citations
  5. Fairness and Abstraction in Sociotechnical Systems2019 · 1,604 citationsWith Suresh Venkatasubramanian

From OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

  1. Of 462 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 190 work there nowIncludes danah boyd. Our estimates of where former Google and Google DeepMind people work now, including moves within Google.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 2% to 32%Includes Microsoft. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 2% in 1975–1979 to 32% in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Microsoft. Our estimates of combined and median h-index at AI organizations, using current affiliations and OpenAlex records.
  4. Google alumni founded or led 87 other organizations, the most among the labs we compareIncludes Microsoft. We trace 212 organizations founded or led by AI lab alumni, and 223 career moves between the labs.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of danah boyd yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. danah boyd | CALS cals.cornell.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Privacy in Digital Environments: Empowering Users - Organizers smg.media.mit.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Overview - danah boyd - MIT Media Lab media.mit.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. boyd: Taking the Pulse of Social Networks - Microsoft Research microsoft.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. AI, data science leaders join Cornell’s Radical Collaboration initiative | Cornell Chronicle news.cornell.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Our Supporters - Data & Society datasociety.net. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. It's Complicated - Yale University Press yalebooks.yale.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. Avoiding Traps, Tracking Decoys: The Political Economy of AI | Department of Information Science | Cornell Bowers infosci.cornell.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.